


Becoming

by bbanzaiz



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Beyond Death, Brigid - Freeform, F/F, Metaphysics, Resurrection, The Morrigan - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 15:14:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3655065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bbanzaiz/pseuds/bbanzaiz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What started with Lydia trying to bring Allison back to life unfolds into trying to right an ancient balance that was torn apart ages ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Becoming

It's barely a week after the pack's second return from Mexico before Lydia decides to take matters into her own hands. Between Meredith, Peter, and Kate she'd been scrambling to keep anyone else from dying. Hadn't had time to properly process the gaping hole left behind after Allison's death. A momentary pang, stiletto knife sharp if Allison's name had come up, but the whole "someone put a bounty on our heads and wants us dead" issue had taken precedence.

Now? Now she's angry. She's angry about Allison dying. Angry about Peter... again. Angry over Jordan Parrish being stuck in the same position she'd been in a year ago. Strange things happening with nobody being able to tell him what he is. She's still angry about how her grandmother died, and being forced to listen to Lorraine's death as her murderer hovered over.

Mainly though, she's furious that Allison is dead while Peter got to use Lydia as a banshee-powered resurrection battery and come back to life. That neither Deaton or Ms. Morrell have mentioned this possibility for Allison to anyone in the pack. And that they shut her down when she tries to ask. Screw that. If they won't help her, she's going to help herself.

~

Lydia approaches her new project like she'd approach her thesis statement. Methodical, thoroughly, and with the mindset that she is Genghis Khan about to unleash the hordes onto Europe. Simply put, failure is not an option.

Still, it's over a month into her research before she hits her first promising lead. A book cited in the bibliography of another book, which had been itself a bibliography source. It's hardly going to be the full answer. After all, she's able to buy the book off of amazon.com. But what the Grimoire of Armadel does do, is give her the information to craft a channel to approach her ability to communicate with the dead.

It takes her a while. She has to intuit parts of the text that are incomplete with what she's already researched. Her first few attempts to make a bridge (she refuses to call it a portal, she's a mathematician, not a World of Warcraft devotee, thank you very much) fail. They don't even fail spectacularly. They just whiff. Nothing. Not even a flicker. Utter failure.

She hits the books again, uses what's left of her credit card balance to buy out every arcane and hard to find material from every occult shop in northern California. She tries again, this time in the woods, under the new moon.

Her failure, this time, is spectacular. The site of her bridge connection expands, shifts the soil beneath her feet, withers the grass and bathes her in a sickly yellow light. And then it explodes. Lydia is lifted off her feet, tumbled backwards, ass-over-tea-kettle, and crashes roughly into the trunk of a tree.

When she shakes the cobwebs clear, the earliest rays of dawn are peaking through the trees. A small crater is left of her bridge point, looking for all the world like a miniature, partially controlled recreation of a Chernobyl blast. As Lydia clutches at the still warm, charcoal remnants of the tree bark to try to stand, her body aches. She never fully figures out what happened to the four hours between the "Chernobyl result" and dawn.

~

The remnants of the Chernobyl reaction take time to fade. Her body aches for days afterward, yet it feels like she has a constant current of static electricity crawling under her skin. She wonders if this is what Kira feels every day. Outwardly, she looks like a mess. Her eyebrows and eyelashes are singed stubble, and her hair has all the constitution of half-bleached straw. Her skin is red and raw, chapped like she'd been caught in a massive windstorm.

Even her skills at makeup and fashion can't cover the full damage, and it draws the attention of both the Pack and Deaton.

Scott is first. He wants to know what she's into. Wants her to be careful. Doesn't want to lose anyone else. She tells him nothing. Scott is too good, too earnest. If he knew, he'd try to stop her, and she doesn't want to see the look on his face when she refuses him. She's not bound to him like the others. He may be an alpha, a true alpha, but he's not hers. Not in this matter.

So she placates him. Tells him it was a misfire at trying to hone in her ability to speak with the dead. (It's not a lie.) That she miscalculated her formula, and won't do it again. (Also not a lie.) She tells him it's for the good of the pack, if she can do this, and she'll be more careful in her attempts. (Not lies.) Lydia sends him on his way, still slightly suspicious, but mostly satisfied that he knows what she's up to.

(Are lies of omission really lies when they're wrapped up in so many truths?)

Stiles is next. He's suspicious and cynical by nature. He thinks with his detective board he's just as much of a researcher as she is. (He's wrong.) Stiles demands to know what she's up to. He knows just enough about magic to know she's dipped into something strong. She gives him the same line she gave Scott. He pushes for more.

So she tells him. Some of it. Tells him that she's trying to form a permanent bridge so she can communicate clearly. No more of the fugue states, no more half hints that she can never figure out until it's too late. (These aren't lies either.) She insists that she's not going to be the weak link, throws him off to another worry. Let him go back to Scott and fuss and fret over Lydia feeling inadequate. That's all he'll get. Part of her, a darker part of her, something she's not even sure she's terribly ashamed of, remembers a nogitsune pressing her up against the wall of the remnants of an internment camp, ordering an Oni to run Allison through the gut with its sword. All while wearing Stiles' face.

Maybe Stiles knows that part of her still blames him. He does leave, face still scrunched up, looking mildly constipated. But he throws a parting shot over his shoulder, warns her to be careful about building her bridge, that bridges allow for things to cross from two ways, not just one.

(She already knows this, she's counting on it.)

Deaton is last. And he has a solid idea of what she's up to. When he confronts her and warns her not to follow her current line of "study", Lydia's only response is "tough shit". For all he and Ms. Morrell are supposed to be emissaries, they've done absolutely nothing for her. How long had they sat on the knowledge of what she was? Are they sitting on the knowledge of what Jordan is? Do they know how to bring Allison back?

Lydia assumes they have some inkling. After all, it only took seconds for Jennifer to name her as a banshee. Granted, she immediately tried to kill her, but if Jennifer knew, Deaton and Ms. Morrell surely would have. And they kept it from her. Looked her right in the eye, and withheld that information. Seriously, if they think they have any right to lecture her on keeping the balance, they can honestly go screw themselves. They weren't there when Lydia needed them, and from her perspective, the only balance they seem intent to keep is some nebulous, arbitrary determination of their own making.

She gives absolutely nothing away, no confirmation or denial. A flounce of her head, dry and brittle hair flipping over her shoulder, and sashays away.

(She’s so tired of waiting for people to help her, she’ll help herself from now on.)

~

It takes three more “Chernobyl” blasts before Lydia can get the bridge to stabilize. At first all she can see is a flicker. Hear a ghost of a whisper tickling her ears. It’s something. She can work with something.

Two months of practice go by, and Lydia learns to tune out the “static” noise. Babble and groaning of spirits or something else that have realized Lydia’s locked in on their frequency. She’d like to think that if it were a true warning, if there were a danger waiting, she’d stop and listen. As it is, she never has the chance to put that thought to the test. All she hears are grumblings of things left undone, petty grievances, and a few attempts of not-spirits (she’s not sure she’s ready to name them anything else) trying to cross that bridge over to her.

Lydia is ready for attempts. Has a stockpile of every supernatural defense she can find. Wolfsbane packets sewn into her clothing, rosemary and basil ground together in a little posey worn around her neck. Protective sigils painted into her skin every morning when she wakes, and every evening before bed. Whatever tries to cross isn’t so powerful as to succeed. But, Lydia knows it will only be a matter of time before something stronger finds her. And she needs to find what she’s looking for first.

She wonders why she hasn’t been able to hear Allison yet. Wonders, not for the first time, if Allison accepted her fate and had passed on, farther beyond Lydia’s current reach.

She hopes not.

~

A month later, Lydia finds a thread to follow. A small, gossamer thing, just wafting in the ether. Lydia imagines closing her fist around it, and her body lights up like a Christmas tree. She feels full, she’s everywhere, in everything. And then she’s not.

She’s floating, weightless, free from everything and everyone save the thread in her hand. She feels compelled to follow it. Why shouldn’t she? She has nothing else to do. The thread is calling to her. Asking her to come.

She goes. The further she follows, the more a burning curiosity grows in the pit of her stomach. Part of her remembers that she’s left something behind, something important. But the thread in her hand is hot and burning, and the warmth is soothing. She’s closer. To what, she’s not sure, but it’s calling out to her. Joyfully, so happy. It’s jubilant and Lydia wants to find the end and join in the rapturous chorus with it. Please, please wait for her. She’s coming, she’s coming.

There’s end end. Is it the end?

It’s not the end at all.

Oh.

It’s so big.

It’s infinite.

So much more.

Eternity is swirled with the birth of the stars.

Beyond is the blackest night.

And _OH!_

There it is!

Color and nothing, and light and dark, and _FURTHER_.

~

Lydia wakes up in her bed. It’s dawn.

~

Something is different. She sees the pack, and they’re there. Sitting in the cafeteria. But it’s more than the cafeteria and it’s less, and she can’t focus on all of the threads to weave them back together. Allison and Jackson are sitting and baiting each other into a bowling game, and now Scott is feeding his french fries to Kira. Then, two boys Lydia doesn’t know, and the school isn’t there at all. It’s woods. And the boys have guns.

Stiles snaps his fingers in front of her face, and Lydia focuses. Stiles. And Malia. And Kira. And Liam, and Scott, and Mason.

_Allison. Jackson. Boyd. Erica. Aiden._

She shakes her head and tries to hold onto Malia grinding a noogie into Stiles’ head for stealing her tater tots. In the distance, something calls out her name.

Not Allison. Why hasn’t Allison reached out to her?

~

Lydia lies awake in her bed that night. She doesn’t feel tired in the slightest. Feels like she can go for days. Weeks. Has the power of of the sun running through her veins, spilling light out of tiny, fleshy constructs to shine through the pores of her skin and light up the room.

And then _It’s_ there.

She isn’t afraid. Not even sure if she can be. Fear laps at the back of her mind like a distant relic. Cuneiform on a crumbling, clay tablet.

It has a name.

_Vassago._

It sounds familiar. She ought to look it up.

Vassago leans over her, skin shifting from ebony to marble, to nothing at all. Then it smiles. Smiles and says “welcome home”.

~

Lydia wakes up in her bed. It’s dawn.

~

She made a bridge at some point. A bridge for a banshee to try and reach the dead.

She knows better now. She _IS_ death. She was always there.

Scott waves a hand in front of face. He looks concerned.

Oh. They’re in school again. Chemistry? Isaac is offering her kanima-poisoned candy.

No. American History. The classroom is empty and Kira and Scott are hovering in front of her.

Stiles wants to meet with her, take her to Deaton. She refuses. She has places to be. So many places.

How did she get home?

Daddy?

An empty house. Mom had detention duty. Dad is gone away.

~

Vassago comes again at night. Lydia is waiting.

Oh, she had meant to look the name up.

It places a hand on her head and whispers for her to sleep.

~

Lydia wakes up in her bed. It’s dawn.

~

Stiles is Stiles. And Scott is Scott. They’re permanent today. Like today is today. They’re tangible, and she can hold onto them.

Why couldn’t she hold on to Allison?

~

Vassago comes again. Smiles, mouth all full of teeth and empty and bright.

“It’s been so long since one of you found the way home.”

Lydia is confused.

Vassago lays a hand on her head again, and whispers for her to sleep. They have time.

~

Lydia wakes up in her bed. It’s dawn.

~

She looks up Vassago online.

The crown Prince of Hell.

Maybe she should be worried. Maybe she should go to Deaton or Ms. Morrell.

Sunlight runs through her veins, and death breathes out of her lungs.

No.

They wouldn’t understand anyway.

~

Vassago comes again.

“You’re a demon.”

It smiles. Bright and furious.

“To some. And angel to others.”

Lydia reaches out, and Vassago takes her hand, corporeal and warm.

“And to me?”

It smiles again. It smiles so beautifully.

“To you, I’m family.”

~

Lydia wakes up in her bed. It’s dawn.

~

She’s missing information. She knows this. But she’s not even sure where the hole in the puzzle is, much less to what she needs to actually find.

A scrap of paper twists in the wind and slaps her across the eyes. When she looks at it, she sees a phone number. She hears a symphony.

She calls.

A witch answers.

~

“Tell me about banshees.”

The woman, older, living on the edge of town in a cozy little bungalow with a white picket fence, offers her spearmint tea and bids her to sit.

“I’ve waited for one of you for so long.”

Lydia blows on her tea to cool it. Takes a sip anyway.

“Threads of Brigid. You were trapped. Unraveled. They stuffed you into flesh, they wanted to stop you both from starting a line. To hurt you. To hurt _her_. You hurt so badly after they took your first son, and then they came for you. She couldn’t survive losing you. She split herself in to fragments, burrowed into human blood and veins and gave herself up to stay with you, until you could find your way home.”

Tears are tracking down Lydia’s face. The sun and fire running under her skin are her, and they’re love, and they’re home and belonging. She reaches just the barest hint further, and touches the beyond again, and _OH._

_I HAVE MISSED YOU._

__

_I. AM._

~

When she comes back to herself, she’s outside. The house is gone. Never existed, yet served its purpose anyway.

She’s still holding her cup of tea.

~

Vassago comes to her again at night.

“You’re not ready yet.”

“For what?”

“To be all that you are. This body isn’t complete.”

“When can I come home?”

“When you find your other half.”

~

Lydia wakes up in bed. It’s dawn.

~

Ms. Morrell shows up on her doorstep. Her face is drawn, tight.

“I’ll help you.”

Lydia laughs. Why now? Isn’t it a little late? She looks, looks, and sees Deucalion and Ms. Morrell running in fear.

Fingers snap in front of her face.

“I’ll help you.”

Apparently finding herself has precipitated the need for someone to fix the balance. She doesn’t know what’s out of balance yet. Can’t solidify it enough beyond everything else to grasp it.

A thought flits across her eyes, it’s a rainbow.

“You didn’t want me to find out. You knew I would.”

Ms. Morrell cocks her head every so slightly.

“We maintain the balance.”

Lydia doesn’t trust her.

~

When Vassago comes at night, she asks about the missing piece. About _her_.

“You weren’t the only one of you who was put away.”

Lydia feels a spark in her chest, a star blooms where her heart is.

“Allison.”

Vassago smiles, a bubbling stream and laughter for teeth. She knows the answer, it swells on the tip of her tongue like starfire, and she has to ask anyway.

“Who was she?”

Vassago tips its head, cups Lydia’s chin.

“The Morrigan.”

~

Lydia wakes up in bed. It’s dawn.

~

She goes back to see Ms. Morrell. Lays all of her cards on the table. She knows the game she’s playing now. Has enough pieces to see the picture clearly. Ms. Morrell _will_ help her now. She doesn’t have any other choice. Lydia is _becoming_. She gives birth to universes in her sleep, and sparks suns when she wakes. She is light and fire, and everywhere.

Lydia needs a balance.

Needs Allison.

Ms. Morrell tells her to meet her on the new moon.

~

It’s not terribly complicated in the end.

Blood for blood. A scream for the dead to leave them a trail to follow home.

Lydia would bleed an ocean for Allison, would set the sky to fire to show her the way.

She settles for a shallow cut on her forearm, and holds it over Allison’s body. Wonders if Ms. Morrell sees what she’s seeing. Lydia bleeds a rainbow, and watches the colors seep into the rotted flesh, plant seeds and bloom life back into an empty husk.

She feels a nebula forming in her gut. Roiling and expanding, stretching and re-knitting to transform itself into a cannon blast, firing out of her stomach into crashing into her lungs. Filling them up with a cacophony of sound. Her mouth opens and it spears out, tearing through the night sky and beyond. Not a wail, never a wail for this. A call, a cry. _‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m here. Come to me, come home.’_

Ms. Morrell flinches in spite of herself, and throws a hand over her eyes in a moment of kneejerk surprise. Lydia’s summons echoes through the quiet dregs of the later evening, clapping like thunder at the edge of the forest. She vaguely wonders if the pack heard her. Part of her hopes they haven’t.

As the sound reverberates out and beyond, Ms. Morrell glaces to the black candle she had lit earlier, watching the flame. Moments later it flickers, stutters, and extinguishes to leave faint wisps of smoke in the cool air as the only evidence it ever lived.

Ms. Morrell nods, and moves to cover Allison’s body with a thin sheet.

“She heard. She’ll come.”

~

Lydia wakes up in bed. It’s dawn.

~

She’s in school. Sitting on uncomfortable plastic, feigning attention to her physics teacher. Her skin buzzes again, all static and lightning running the interstate of her veins and vibrating her teeth. Scott and the others move as though everything is in order. Good. Her call was to Allison. Ms. Morrell was an unavoidable impurity, a fly in a pitcher of cream. Still, better one fly than a handful.

_AllisonMorriganQueenBeloved_

__

_Come back. I am waiting. Come to me._

Outside, the sky begins to darken. The wind picks up, slams against the glass windows, rattling them to the foundations. Birds flock to the sky, all shapes and sizes, moving and swirling together, spiraling into a circular cloud as the sun turns away, shines its light elsewhere.

Students and teachers alike begin to panic.

The earth rumbles and Lydia gasps in delight. Allison is coming to her.

She slips out, follows the threads, shining silver through the walls and bodies in her way. Walks through the shadows and finds herself in the school parking lot. Wraps herself tightly in the loosened ends until she glows silver in the darkness.

Lydia is thrown off her feet, carried into the dark sky, and cradled in arms that are both as hard as steel and soft as cotton.

_‘Beloved.’_

Allison, oh, Allison. More and less, and become.

Allison tightens her hold, shelters Lydia’s light with her darkness, breathes her in.

_‘Mine. Mine. Mine.’_

__

_‘Yours.’_

Their embrace is frantic, they are become and more and less and beyond their human vessels. They’re home. Home and further, and they break and shatter and re-knit themselves together again. Stronger, tighter, so they cannot be ever be unwoven, made unwhole and defiled.

Brigid and Morrigan, light and dark, and whole.

The sky shines for them, opens up and weeps at their beauty.

~

She is whole, and Allison holds her tightly, fingers trailing along the skin below her breasts, over her thighs, claiming. Biting her possession into the back of her neck and shoulders.

“Mine.”

Lydia turns over, reaches up to cup Allison’s face and arches into her demanding hands. Submits and allows herself to be taken, again and again.

 

“Yours.”

~

Later in the day, they lay next to each other, their mating frenzy having cooled. They are become, and they are human, and further. Lydia knows they can’t stay in Beacon Hills much longer. She and Allison simply have too much to do as their existing incarnations. Soon their fragile bodies will burn out from containing all of them, they will die and turn to dust, and they will go home. There is so much damage to repair before that time. So much rebuilding to do, to start their line as they should have so long ago. The stars have been aligned and righted, and their line must be nurtured before it can stand on its own among the other mortals.

She smiles, already feeling Allison’s interest in the two kitsunes, even the coyote. Her beloved’s interest in the tricksters bleeds out through her pores, and she wants to claim them as hers. Lydia sighs and burrows deeper into Allison’s embrace, warmth flooding her as a strong hand comes up to splay over her belly.

Then again, Beacon Hills could be the perfect place to start their line. Surrounded by loving guardians until they were ready to step into their birthright. Perhaps.

“They’ll be looking for us eventually. My mother will be home.”

Allison rubs her nose into the back of Lydia’s hair, breathes her scent in deeply. Rubs her hand in protective circles over Lydia’s belly and presses insistently up against her backside.

There is still time. Panic has seized the city, and the spectacular light and water show from earlier called down martial law. Time enough to be extra thorough in making sure their line is sparked tonight.

“But not yet.”

She feels Allison grin behind her, knows that Allison will make sure they are uninterrupted for as long as she wants. Lydia’s blood quickens, and she tips her head back, baring her neck. Hisses as Allison flips her over and settles between her thighs, pressing down warm and solid and part of her. Dark eyes shine with glee, and one hand clasps and pins both of Lydia’s arms up and over her head. Allison smiles and Lydia knows she is about to be utterly devoured.

Oh, yes, they have time.

~

Lydia wakes up in bed. It’s dawn. She is not alone.

**Author's Note:**

> Part of the allydiareversebig, my fill for mccalloutboy as inspired by their mix, which can be found here: http://8tracks.com/bivergent/ain-t-no-sunshine


End file.
